Breaking: Windows Blue will be a free update named Windows 8.1

The update will ship later this year.

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The update to Windows 8 previously codenamed "Blue" will be officially known as "Windows 8.1," and it will be shipping later this year as a free update distributed via the Windows Store. Windows 8.1 was announced by Windows Division CFO Tami Reller today at JP Morgan's Technology, Media, and Telecom Conference in Boston.

A public preview of Windows 8.1 will be available on June 26, which coincides with the start of Microsoft’s Build developer conference in San Francisco.

161 Reader Comments

I am not a Microsoft fan, but I feel like I ought to be kind given what a horrible disaster Win8 has been. My IT pals just moan when I ask them how it's going. And I laugh, if only because I haven't "upgraded" to Lion or Mountain Lion and have zero intention of doing so. Like when you're playing cards and decide to hold rather than discard anything in your hand for new cards...

At least Microsoft is good for entertainment. From a distance. I helped my kid build a gaming PC last year and I made certain he understood I was NOT INTERESTED in doing any tech support on Windows...

It's funny how the idiots compare Windows 8 to Vista.. yet the people who know anything about OSs at all compare it to Windows 3.1. Might even explain the choice in numbering, maybe, yeah.. I think so.

For how often that sentiment is expressed I wonder how many people actually do it. IMO search is overrated.

On my very fast Windows machine:

Starting a program with search:

- Take hand away from mouse move to keyboard- press windows key- try to remember name of application and start typing ( can work well for something like word or less good for something like your VPN app. Whatever it is called- Wait for 1 second or so while it is searching, ( no its not instantaneous although it seems to cache some things )- verify that the first hit is correct and press enter. - if you have a common name like WinXXX press up and down keys till you found it and press enter

in total takes 2-4 seconds if you know the name and you need to switch between mouse and keyboard which is extra annoying. It is called a GRAPHICAL user interface for some reasons.

Starting a program with mouse:- its pinned: move mouse there with FPS trained accuracy and click takes 0.5 seconds.- its not pinned but used regularly: take mouse to start menu click on item in the recently used list, two clicks 1.5 seconds- if its not in that list you need to go through All programs which can take 5-10 seconds.

But all in all I would disagree with the idea that its substantially faster apart from some rare cases ( you know the name and don't use it often) but its worse for some other cases ( you don't know the exact name but would recognize the name or icon )

And even if it would be faster on average it is just annoying as hell to be working with your mouse for example during browsing and then having to switch input contexts by switching to the keyboard. Again it is a GUI. I should only be forced to search if it is really necessary.

I was one of those people that bitched and moaned about the Windows 8 UI, until I actually installed it.

It's fucking fine. Just hit the windows key when you need to launch an app. Is it really that hard? The rest of the experience is quite literally identical to that of Windows 7, with a standard desktop. I don't use any of the built-in applications for mail, contacts etc, and nobody here does as well. You all use web-based mail or Thunderbird/Outlook.

The real improvements are mostly under the hood, with numerous security and performance boosts. It never crashes on me, everything runs quickly.

So shut up already.

You're in the minority. Maybe you should think about why that is. Oh, and don't be such a dick...

....1) Program Crashes are because most third-party software is basically shit.2) driver incompatibilities is because AMD and Nvidia both took a shat on Microsoft because Microsoft forced them to release signed drivers for x64.3) Vista took more resources but most people just had shitty hardware to begin with because of the 8 year old Windows XP effect.

Only one was Microsoft's fault and that was #3

Let's not forget the "Vista Ready" biz, with MS blessing underpowerd, incapable POS hardware to keep vendors selling, IMHO that was a string contributing factor to Vista's downgraded reputation. And yes, I _do_ blame MS business practices for that.

It sounds an awful lot like they're bringing back the start BUTTON but not the menu that goes with it. which is like sticking with New Coke, but putting it in Classic Coke cans. the whole point of those of us who want the menu back is that we dont want the metro start screen.

Their apology is one of those forced, defiant apologies from a kid who doesn't mean it in the slightest.

Because Service Packs historically have not added new features. Windows 8.1 "Blue" will add new features, tweak existing features, and of course roll all updates into one.

C'mon, Windows XP SP2 really did add features like WPA encryption and overall Wi-Fi support, some bluetooth support, DEP and so on.

Windows XP Service Pack 2 is one of two exceptions to that rule.

I also used the god damm word "historically" so the exception you speak of was implied in my statement.

Windows XP Service Pack 1, Windows XP Service Pack 3, Windows Vista Service Pack 1 & 2 and Windows 7 Service 1 all just brought stability to the platform. Windows Server 2003 had a similar update that Windows XP brought, only because the length of time, both were on the market.

The Service Pack not bringing new features is actually Microsoft's own policy. If you read the updates that are connect to VS2012 Update 1 & 2 you can gain more inside knowlege on what "Service Pack" has historically meant for their software.

OK so we started with point edition way back in the 2.x days, then we had "Second Edition" then we moved to "R2" and now we are back to point edition. I don't think the rules are as clear cut as you make them out to be. This could be have been Win8 SE or Win8 R2.

I believe the reason for going back to point editions was to make a clear separation in the public mind - "this is not the win8.0, this is better"

Looks like this might be the equivalent of the Vista update that actually made that system relatively stable. If it can just outlast the mediocre 8 launch press...

When was Vista ever unstable?

Edit: it's nice to see that asking genuine questions is reason enough for downvotes.

I guess you never really used Vista did you? I've never had so many program crashes, driver incompatibilities, lockups, and blue screens in my life. Not to mention Vista was a major resource hog.

Quote:

1) Program Crashes are because most third-party software is basically shit.2) driver incompatibilities is because AMD and Nvidia both took a shat on Microsoft because Microsoft forced them to release signed drivers for x64.3) Vista took more resources but most people just had shitty hardware to begin with because of the 8 year old Windows XP effect.

Only one was Microsoft's fault and that was #3

Disagree,

1) is definitely the OS fault. It is the job of the OS to prevent crashes from rogue applications. Other OS do this quite well, Vista rather famously did not.

2) is also Microsoft fault. The lack of documentation, the sudden switch to an entirely new driver model very late in development are all poor planning on part of Microsoft and they deserve some if not all the blame.

Executive 1: How are we going to get them to allow us to move from an open platform to a walled garden?

Executive 2: We'll distract them. We'll remove the start button and start closing the platform at the same time. When they scream and revolt, we'll bring back the start button. There will be so much joy at the return of the start button, that everyone will forget about the walled garden.

Windows 7Hit StartType: event viewerShift+Right click on the entry"Run as different user."Mission accomplished.

You can also just use the shortcut that exists to open the control panel and search for "even" takes all of 3 steps to launch the control panel applet in question.

Smart people find ways to things quicker and easier, it took at least 6 steps in Windows 7 to launch the event viewer now its 3.

It most certainly did not take 6 steps (as you just quoted):1. Start2: event viewer3: done.

Regardless, going through the Control Panel as you suggest does not allow me to launch it as a different user.

You changed the requirements. Who the hell launches the event viewer as a different user?

No, I didn't. I said I needed to launch it as domain admin. And plenty of sys admins need to launch programs as an account with admin privileges. My account doesn't have permission to view another users' computer, but my admin account does.

I don't usually have any trouble with it, but I tend to drop to commandline for anything major if it's not running core.

I still have to contend with 2008, and haven't been paying attention, have MS provided a method of accessing their servers via something other than RDP? Otherwise commandline is still just the GUI, and it still suffers from lag when accessing machines at remote locations which mean dropped key presses, including not always recognising ALT, or SHIFT.

Just go to the bottom left corner of the screen, the last few pixels. "Start" will pop up, you can either left click for the enlarged Tile Based start menu or right click for a lot of the more useful server options.

I'm not sure why some people are so emotionally wrapped tied to the start menu, and I've even seen it with "power users" who you'd expect to have been using search for years now. I don't know, maybe it's because they've never used anything besides Windows, whereas other people who use multiple OSs are comfortable with UI changes

I think you miss the point. It's easier to search ON THE SAME SCREEN YOU ARE WORKING ON, which is what the start menu lets you do, and the start screen doesn't.

Not to mention that you don't always remember exactly what you are looking for (because it some rarely used tool) and the start menu is much quicker to browse.

And how often do you care about what's on your screen at the very same instance that you're launching a program? I can't think of any instance.

And as for launching a rarely used program, full screen is better because you can see more shortcuts at once.

You must not be a developer or somebody that ever needs more than one tool at a time. I often need to quickly pull up something else to do some quick task and switching to a completely different screen, losing sight of my IDE, is sub-optimal and disruptive. Not all apps are fullscreen.

What's the point of being able to dock windows at the sides of the screen for a side-by-side comparison when opening the second window is going to take you out of the environment you are working in?

Hopefully by then all the nay-sayers will have realized that the Windows 8 start menu is just a full screen Windows 7 start menu.

It does need tweaked in terms of what it's indexing and in what order it presents the results, but those are easily fixed problems.

Aside from those minor issues, the start screen is unequivocally better, and I say this as someone who uses keyboard/mouse exclusively.

No problem, then. When Microsoft brings back the start menu the start page won't be going anywhere, and you can continue to use the start page to your heart's content while I use the start menu and boot to desktop. I should say this is what Microsoft should have done from the start, but I'm not sure the company is going to give its customers what they want in this case, which I think is unfortunate for Microsoft (scuttlebutt is that the start button, sans start menu, is what's coming to 8.1--which is loony if true as what's the point of the button without the menu?). Business is absolutely not going to roll out Win8 in mass quantities until the start menu is returned as a UI option. I don't have a touchscreen nor do I desire to have one; businesses with traditional "seats" won't be using them, either. The start screen is a touchscreen UI element and that is all it is. People sans touchscreens should not be forced to use it--it should be a voluntary preference--a choice.

This is not an either-or situation, and Microsoft cannot say it isn't "technically possible" for the start menu and start page to coexist because there are both open-source and commercially available "start buttons/menus" that coexist just fine with the start screen in Win8Pro. Microsoft should already know that millions of people (at least, as there is an estimated installed base of 1,400,000,000 (!) non-touchscreen computers that are theoretical candidates for Win8Pro) prefer and enjoy booting to a scenic desktop as opposed to a garish, kindergarten-ish start page that looks like something designed for the visually handicapped (and I am being kind.)

All of this fuss is really dumb and Microsoft should have been smart enough to avoid it. Start page aside, the complete, Win7 Explorer UI within Win8Pro is *present and accounted for* with the *sole* exception of the start button/menu. Indeed, if you run programs from the start page you are immediately dumped back into the Explorer desktop because those programs won't run any other way (unless you are running a rather childish "App" from the Microsoft App Store--excuse me, I'll pass.) The great bulk of intra-OS utilities, like Device Manager, can be run from the start page, but then immediately drop the user right back into the explorer UI to execute. It's just nuts that Microsoft idiotically decided to turn the start menu into a bone of contention. Smart money would have introduced the start page as an option and let Microsoft customers decide what they prefer--these are mere UI elements, after all! The only "principle" here for Microsoft is or should be customer satisfaction.

It's remarkable, really. This year will see the shipping of some 350M non-touchscreen computers capable of running Win7/8. That number alone significantly exceeds the total number of touchscreen tablets (capable of running an actual computer OS like Win8Pro) that are estimated to ship this year. Then there's that pesky 1.4B installed base of potential Win8 customers, too. But Microsoft has been sipping at the Jonestown koolaid RDF trough, right beside Apple, apparently, as it has this delusion that touchscreen computers outnumber non-touchscreens, and those who have non-touchscreen monitors will be tossing them aside for touchscreens. Note to Microsoft: ain't gonna' happen. (I could delve into the myriad of reasons why this is so, but that's best done in a separate thread.)

I was hoping to see that change with the start screen. Software should have a single entry in the "program catalog" and everything else should be handled in the appropriate context: internally to that software. Even if it means making a launcher. Instead I still have multiple entries for single software suites and even products in my start screen. And these aren't live tiles: these are just different ways to start the programs in question which could have been handled at the level of the software itself. What a mess. I could clean this all up, but something like the start screen needs to start off relatively clean rather than as a complete chore.

What I really wish is that the start screen had actually been built to optionally remain up in a multi monitor environment even when not in focus, because the live tiles are actually reasonably useful... when they're visible. So that's my personal hope.

Bravo! This is one the best posts I have seen in a while.To make the new Start screen better MS needs to:- Allow group naming and optional collapse of groups.- Pressure developers in getting their act together. Application need just one icon and it HAS to be live. Live tiles on the desktop have a huge potential.- Let the user choose the default monitor for the start menu and the option for it to stay active at all times.- While you are at it, do the same thing for the login screen and make damn sure it is able to handle any aspect ratios (the current implementation brakes on Nvidia/ATI surround modes).

So many other annoying presentation/gui bugs or shaky design choices. Reminds me every day how GUI design/polishing is not MS strong suit.

I don't mind hitting the Windows key for the Start screen, and I'm a taskbar junkie anyway, but I really wish they'd make the DWM able to shut down and start back up again. It's a waste of VRAM during fullscreen games. They made it always-on for Metro, which I wouldn't miss if it went away.

It was the first 6 to 8 months after launch because many hardware vendors like AMD and Nvidia couldn't be arsed to come up with working drivers, even after they had over a year for doing that while the Beta was running.

In addition, Vista was the first Windows that no longer relied on PnP but expected a fully ACPI compliant BIOS. Of course many mainboard manufacturers couldn't be bothered to update their half-arsed buggy ACPI implementations in time, which caused a lot of grief. On a side note: Dell's ACPI support was truly exemplary, with having full ACPI support in all their BIOSes since at least 1999. In fact, I ran Vista on an old Dell OptiPlex GX110 (Pentium 3 with i810 chipset, made in 1999), which already came with an ACPI compliant BIOS.

I don't usually have any trouble with it, but I tend to drop to commandline for anything major if it's not running core.

I still have to contend with 2008, and haven't been paying attention, have MS provided a method of accessing their servers via something other than RDP? Otherwise commandline is still just the GUI, and it still suffers from lag when accessing machines at remote locations which mean dropped key presses, including not always recognising ALT, or SHIFT.

I'm not sure why some people are so emotionally wrapped tied to the start menu, and I've even seen it with "power users" who you'd expect to have been using search for years now. I don't know, maybe it's because they've never used anything besides Windows, whereas other people who use multiple OSs are comfortable with UI changes

I think you miss the point. It's easier to search ON THE SAME SCREEN YOU ARE WORKING ON, which is what the start menu lets you do, and the start screen doesn't.

Not to mention that you don't always remember exactly what you are looking for (because it some rarely used tool) and the start menu is much quicker to browse.

And how often do you care about what's on your screen at the very same instance that you're launching a program? I can't think of any instance.

And as for launching a rarely used program, full screen is better because you can see more shortcuts at once.

You must not be a developer or somebody that ever needs more than one tool at a time. I often need to quickly pull up something else to do some quick task and switching to a completely different screen, losing sight of my IDE, is sub-optimal and disruptive. Not all apps are fullscreen.

What's the point of being able to dock windows at the sides of the screen for a side-by-side comparison when opening the second window is going to take you out of the environment you are working in?

I'm systems administrator and we do things devops style, so I have a ton of tools open at any given time; both IDEs and a pile of remote\local shells, plus the other usual stuff like browsers, IM client, etc ..

I'm not talking about the Metro single app interface, I'm talking about the start screen as a launcher.

The metro apps don't even begin to cover my needs, and I have a number of criticisms about them, but that's a completely different thing then the start screen vs. start menu.

Windows 7Hit StartType: event viewerShift+Right click on the entry"Run as different user."Mission accomplished.

You can also just use the shortcut that exists to open the control panel and search for "even" takes all of 3 steps to launch the control panel applet in question.

Smart people find ways to things quicker and easier, it took at least 6 steps in Windows 7 to launch the event viewer now its 3.

It most certainly did not take 6 steps (as you just quoted):1. Start2: event viewer3: done.

Regardless, going through the Control Panel as you suggest does not allow me to launch it as a different user.

You changed the requirements. Who the hell launches the event viewer as a different user?

No, I didn't. I said I needed to launch it as domain admin. And plenty of sys admins need to launch programs as an account with admin privileges. My account doesn't have permission to view another users' computer, but my admin account does.

Maybe if that was something that you actually had to do often, instead of a contrived example to exaggerate the perceived difficulties associated with the new start screen, you'd know that in the 'Action' menu of Event Viewer, you can "Connect to Another Computer", specifying there to connect as your admin account.

The reality is not that either one is completely bad in and of itself, but rather that the problem they try to solve is one that just does not have a nice UI solution. Any UI attempting to do what the start menu and start screen do (in terms of providing a centralized index of all software installed on a computer) is going to be shitty in some if not all aspects.

The one thing the start menu had and still has going for it is the global continuity and consistency aspect lending familiarity. People were familiar with the start menu. This is in no way to be discounted. Familiarity--on a broad, dumbed down level--is one of the bedrock principles of UX/usability psychology, as much as it gets in the way of "forward looking" design at times.

On a personal level, I hate both of them equally for the purpose of being a quick access to programs I want to use. Microsoft's biggest problem here is not actually their own design (well, the start menu is fairly nasty in a number of ways, but it's also sometimes functional when you have very little installed) but rather third parties. Instead of locking down how software installs and what it is allowed to place in areas like the start menu, it's basically a free for all.

I was hoping to see that change with the start screen. Software should have a single entry in the "program catalog" and everything else should be handled in the appropriate context: internally to that software. Even if it means making a launcher. Instead I still have multiple entries for single software suites and even products in my start screen. And these aren't live tiles: these are just different ways to start the programs in question which could have been handled at the level of the software itself. What a mess. I could clean this all up, but something like the start screen needs to start off relatively clean rather than as a complete chore.

What I really wish is that the start screen had actually been built to optionally remain up in a multi monitor environment even when not in focus, because the live tiles are actually reasonably useful... when they're visible. So that's my personal hope.

For how often that sentiment is expressed I wonder how many people actually do it. IMO search is overrated.

On my very fast Windows machine:

Starting a program with search:

- Take hand away from mouse move to keyboard- press windows key- try to remember name of application and start typing ( can work well for something like word or less good for something like your VPN app. Whatever it is called- Wait for 1 second or so while it is searching, ( no its not instantaneous although it seems to cache some things )- verify that the first hit is correct and press enter. - if you have a common name like WinXXX press up and down keys till you found it and press enter

in total takes 2-4 seconds if you know the name and you need to switch between mouse and keyboard which is extra annoying. It is called a GRAPHICAL user interface for some reasons.

Starting a program with mouse:- its pinned: move mouse there with FPS trained accuracy and click takes 0.5 seconds.- its not pinned but used regularly: take mouse to start menu click on item in the recently used list, two clicks 1.5 seconds- if its not in that list you need to go through All programs which can take 5-10 seconds.

But all in all I would disagree with the idea that its substantially faster apart from some rare cases ( you know the name and don't use it often) but its worse for some other cases ( you don't know the exact name but would recognize the name or icon )

And even if it would be faster on average it is just annoying as hell to be working with your mouse for example during browsing and then having to switch input contexts by switching to the keyboard. Again it is a GUI. I should only be forced to search if it is really necessary.

Keyboard shortcuts and GUIs aren't mutually exclusive. One of the key advantages Windows has over its competitors (much more so OS X than Linux GUIs) is keyboard shortcuts. Office is loaded with them, and 2007, 2010, 2013 are just built to make discovering the shortcuts easy. Increasingly, Microsoft apps are being built so you can fully drive them from either the keyboard or the mouse. Since most people don't use hundreds of apps in a day and most probably sit in the same app for a few hours (like Excel or Outlook), it makes total sense - using the keyboard is way faster and more convenient. Just keep your hands on your keyboard.

Plus I really question your bit about the search speed - in my experience it's always been fast, even when running in Virtual Box.

Maybe if that was something that you actually had to do often, instead of a contrived example to exaggerate the perceived difficulties associated with the new start screen, you'd know that in the 'Action' menu of Event Viewer, you can "Connect to Another Computer", specifying there to connect as your admin account.

Work smarter, not harder.

I didn't realize that, thanks for pointing that out.

That works fine for the event viewer example, but what about cmd? powershell? I don't want to be forced to create shortcuts on my desktop (I like my desktop empty) to fix something that worked fine in Windows 7.

My only complaint with Win8 is the Start Screen. It makes life so much more difficult. Here's an example:My goal is to launch the Event Viewer under my domain admin credentials.

Windows 7Hit StartType: event viewerShift+Right click on the entry"Run as different user."Mission accomplished.

Windows 8*Hit StartType: event viewerEr, right. Hit Win+W (or click "settings") Aha! There it is.. oh wait.. there is no context menu.Escape to the Start Screen.Right click and select All AppsMuddle through until you find event viewer. Nope, still no context menu or any way to do anything with it.Discover Windows Journal, launch that to look at it later.Get back on track, right, I needed event viewer.Open Explorer, go to C:\Windows\System32Shift+Right click on eventvwr.exe and run as different user.Mission (finally) accomplished.

...

Can't you use the Advanced menu on the start screen, or use runas? Alternatively, I've been told you can select the icon then press ctrl+shift+enter to launch it with admin priviliges (which will prompt you).

My only complaint with Win8 is the Start Screen. It makes life so much more difficult. Here's an example:My goal is to launch the Event Viewer under my domain admin credentials.

Windows 7Hit StartType: event viewerShift+Right click on the entry"Run as different user."Mission accomplished.

Windows 8*Hit StartType: event viewerEr, right. Hit Win+W (or click "settings") Aha! There it is.. oh wait.. there is no context menu.Escape to the Start Screen.Right click and select All AppsMuddle through until you find event viewer. Nope, still no context menu or any way to do anything with it.Discover Windows Journal, launch that to look at it later.Get back on track, right, I needed event viewer.Open Explorer, go to C:\Windows\System32Shift+Right click on eventvwr.exe and run as different user.Mission (finally) accomplished.

...

Can't you use the Advanced menu on the start screen, or use runas? Alternatively, I've been told you can select the icon then press ctrl+shift+enter to launch it with admin priviliges (which will prompt you).

"Run as administrator" (ctrl+shift+enter) isn't what I'm looking for, I need "run as different user." I won't get a login prompt because I have admin rights on my pc. I will probably end up using a bunch of custom shortcuts that I create using runas to get what I need.

I am curious however, what's this "Advanced menu on the start screen" you speak of?